Sunday was the 40th Annual Gay Pride Celebration in San Francisco. The Gay Pride Parade is the closest thing to Mardi Gras the City Of San Francisco has to offer.
My friends and I staked out a prime location for viewing the parade with optimal chance of getting free goodies handed out by the parade participants. There was also a good chance that we would be seen on the television broadcast of the parade. (We were!)
The parade started promptly at 10:30 in the morning and lasted over three hours! The first 15 minutes of the event was lead by the group Dykes on Bikes. These women riding motorcycles and scooters roared down Market Street setting the pace of the parade. Later there would be two other groups with a similar theme; Mikes on Bikes and Tykes on Bikes.
In an ironic twist for this blogger, a very popular float was the "Crazy Cupcakes!" It seems I can't escape this dessert for the life of me.
There were several cheer leading groups from across the State demonstrating their strength, stunting and spirit!
The first of the many Celebrity Grand Marshal's was Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker. Alice Walker is best known for writing The Color Purple.
Our prime viewing location was right where San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began shaking the parade spectators hands. This was a tough choice; take his picture or shake his hand. I went for both and succeeded!
Another Celebrity Grand Marshal was Andy Bell who was the lead singer of the band Erasure.
The above picture shows Andy's reaction to my friend An yelling, "Andy I love you!"
I almost missed the Celebrity Grand Marshal's I was looking forward to seeing the most. The Backstreet Boys! I had turned away from the parade for a moment and when I turned back around they were passing us by!
Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys.
Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys.
Howie Dorough and A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys.
I was also excited to see Nick Verreos of Project Runway season two fame. He was the contestant who won the My Scene Barbie competition and had his design manufactured into a limited edition Barbie.
By the end of the parade I had collected a bag full of free junk including lots of Mardi Gras style beads.
Watching a parade is hard work! We crashed for a moment in the Bloomingdales lounge before heading to the Civic Center where the festivities continued with food, music and friends.
Below is a video of some of the parade. The first three minutes of the video is just a portion of ladies that started out the parade!
In honor of the Backstreet Boys and Andy Bell; for the first time ever, Just Jon is featuring two songs of the day!
Songs of The Day - Everybody (Backstreet's Back) by the Backstreet Boys
Great pictures...The mayor, Alice Walker, the Backstreet Boys and then Erasure. I owned The Innocents at one time...played it many times. Unfortunately, it is sitting in a shoe box in the garage on Chippewa in Ventura. Should have given them a little more respect.
ReplyDeleteb
great pictures just jon and look at those ladies ride! a very colorful day, in more ways than one. looked like a beautiful day too, with your beautiful friends. those cupcake floats, seems like i recall you had a bit of a problem resisting sweets at lent time also. but who's keeping score?
ReplyDeletelove, mom
B -
ReplyDeleteI had to look up "The Innocents." I didn't know that was the name of the album that had A Little Respect on it. I have it on Erasure's Greatest Hits. In looking it up I saw that they re-issued The Innocents in 2009 for the 20th Anniversary.
J
here we go again with the lenten promises!
ReplyDeletethe pictures are really nice! especially the cupcakes!! haha
quick question...whats an HTML tag??
meg
At some point it became more about how much free stuff i could collect...i am well prepared with beads for next year.
ReplyDeleteMy top two favorite moments: mayor newsome and the rolling cupcakes.
SK
Meg -
ReplyDeleteI looked up the definition of "HTML Tag." Here is what I found:
A web page is created using a language called, Hypertext Markup Language, better known as HTML Code. You can write your own coding within a plain text editor, such as Note Pad, or use an HTML editor, which will write the code for you.
HTML codes, also referred to as HTML tags
Hope that helps!
Uncle Jon